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Bake-Kujira
The Bake-Kujira, or ghost-whale, is the skeletal spirit of a dead whale. It is said that the creature was from Shimane prefecture, in western Japan. It is supposedly humongous, and it is always accompanied by a host of strange birds and fish. In one story, a fisherman threw his harpoon at the bake-kujira to try to catch it, but the harpoon passed right through it, and the whale and its host just floated away into the night. Other legends say that the ghost-whale brings a powerful curse with it. "The curse of the whale", as it's creatively called, is said to bring famine, plague, fires, and other kinds of disasters to the villages it hits. This is a legend told by many Japanese fisherman and sailors that describes the Bake-Kujir: One rainy night long ago, some fishers living on the Shimane peninsula witnessed an enormous white shape off the coast in the Sea of Japan. Squinting their eyes, it appeared to them to be a whale swimming offshore. Excited for the catch, they rallied the townspeople, who grabbed their spears and harpoons and took to their boats to hunt down and catch their quarry. They soon reached the whale, but no matter how many times they hurled their weapons, not one of them struck true. When they looked closer, through the dark, rain-spattered water’s surface, they realized why: what they thought was a white whale was actually a humongous skeleton swimming in the sea, not a single bit of flesh on its entire body. At that very moment, the sea became alive with a host strange fish that nobody had ever seen before, and the sky swarmed full of eerie birds which nobody could recognize and the likes of which had never been seen before. The ghost whale then turned sharply out to sea, and swiftly vanished into the current, taking all the strange fish and birds with it, never to be seen again. The terrified villagers returned home, realizing that the skeletal whale must have been a Bake-Kujira – the ghost of a whale turned into a vengeful ghost. While the ghost whale was never seen again, other villages in Shimane felt the whale’s curse, being consumed by conflagrations and plagued by infectious diseases following whale beachings. Possible Explanations Whale Carcass The Bake-Kujira could have been a bloated decomposing whale with the flesh eaten or rotten off showing many bones. All the fish and birds may have been there for food as a dead whale is a large feast for such small animals and maybe the animals followed the corpse from far out and the villagers were not familiar to the wild and unknown beasts. The disease could of been contracted from the rotting carcass and the infected water could ruin the soil. If the animals were eaten after eating to decomposing whale many illnesses could be transferred. Enemy Vessel Maybe a rival village was sent to distract the village as they destroyed their settlement with fire and toxins and other ways of spreading death and disease. The Bake-Kujiara may have been a wooden frame shaped as a whale for even more attraction and rotting food or trash could of been placed inside of it to attract all the fish and birds. download (3).jpeg download (4).jpeg download (5).jpeg download whale.jpeg alphabestiary____bake_kujira_by_sakitaro-d7atxjq.jpg syrus 2.jpg Category:Article stubs Category:Oceanic Cryptids Category:Ocean carcasses Category:Ocean Carcasses Category:Whales Category:Cetaceans Category:Japan Category:Sea creature Category:Ghosts Category:Mammals Category:Mammal Category:Fish Category:Birds Category:Bird Category:No Modern Sightings Category:Myth And Legends Category:Myths and Legends Category:Aquatic-based Cryptid